


Like an Echo

by Roarsthedandelion



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: AU, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Major Character Injury, Victor POV, Yuri P is called Yura, composer!Victor, dancer!yuri, in any and all universes, not explicit just there, on how Victor is a shy and connection-starved person, rating is primarily for cursing and negative self-talk, spellings are how they are in the show, this may or may not be a disguised thesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 13:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16493714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roarsthedandelion/pseuds/Roarsthedandelion
Summary: “Don’t you want to see this through, Victor? Don’t you want to push yourself?” He brought out the voice recorder app. “We’ll figure something out. Come on, let’s start from the beginning: tell me about love.”The articles could paint it any way they liked, and they would. The truth is this: Victor Nikiforov needed to write about something he'd never quite understood before, and Yuri Katsuki needed a reason to pick himself off that park bench and keep going.





	Like an Echo

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, but I was playing around with style in this piece and so not only does it jump around a bit but it can get a little intense. Tissues and water are highly recommended. 
> 
> And special thanks to Em, who has helped tremendously with editing and support, and to Em's phone, which has suffered bravely.

The theater reminded Victor so much of his recurring nightmare of being sawed in half. He felt an ache in his gut, his limbs pulling him in different directions. He could feel the questioning glances, the whispered wonder-- “Victor’s here, do you think it’s true?” and “I think he did the music under the pseudonym, that’s why” and “Aren’t they exes? I wouldn’t come see my exes’ opening night, not for a million dollars”-- which weighed upon the thing that had settled in his chest months ago, and if it weren’t for Makkachin’s nudge against his leg, he would’ve been perfectly all right curling up into a ball in the aisle and screaming till somebody locked him up for good.

Instead, he checked his ticket for the 50th time to make sure he was still going in the right direction. It was in the orchestra section, 9 rows back and on the rightmost edge of the row, so Makka wouldn’t be so inconvenient. It was thoughtful, and if he was absolutely sure Yura was the one who’d stuffed the envelope in his mailbox three weeks ago, he would’ve-- he would’ve something, something nice. Victor knew he wasn’t good at bonding with people, even with all his practice, but Yura was difficult to please all on his own. Yakov said it was because he was a teenager; Yuri said it was because he didn’t know the difference between others’ expectations and his own. 

The seat was easy enough to find, so he sat there, 20 minutes to curtain, bored. 

He could check his phone, but the voice in his head was telling him to chuck it into the pit, so that stayed firmly in his pocket. He could pet Makka, but then people would think it was okay to ignore her bright pink ‘I’m working’ vest, so she sat there, watching him expectantly. He read every letter of the program, even the multitude of insipid advertisements. And then he read it again. 

There wasn’t a single image of Yuri in costume, which was maddening. His curiosity was near lethal. And then the musical credits-- all of them either dead and gone or so “new” that Victor hadn’t heard of them. Granted, he didn’t much care for DJs, but he wasn’t so lost in that department that he wouldn’t remember having heard of a PumaTigerScorpion, the one credited for Yuri’s “On Love”. There was also ſJ, but Victor could only contemplate the pronunciation of that for so long before getting nauseous. Surely, Yuri could’ve come to him for music rather than some random person with a midi controller! Even after everything, surely he knew?

Then again, there’s plenty Yuri could’ve done with Victor, had he wanted. He hadn’t wanted. Victor needed to live with that. For Makkachin, if no one else-- what if he died? What if no one found him and Makka had to eat him to live? He probably didn’t taste very good to dogs, not with his moisturizing routine-- what if his moisturizer killed Makka?! How would he go on?

There was a twitch in his fingers to reach for his phone, just to look up the ingredients, just in case. The voice got a little louder; Victor sat on his hands. 

He should’ve stayed home. 

Someone called for everyone to take their seats, and the lights dimmed, and it’d be too much effort to fight the flow of people inwards and too noticeable if he made a break for the doors afterwards. 

Victor still wanted to see him dance in person, anyway, on a proper stage and not in his living room. There wasn’t enough room there, not even close, which is what had Victor contemplating converting the spare room that was intended for family to visit ( they never bothered) into something better suited to Yuri’s practicing. It was too far from where Victor could watch easily-- whether from the Thinking Couch or from the piano bench-- and so it had never gone further than a daydream, but maybe if everything hadn’t gone to shit, he may have done it. 

It would’ve been a decent gesture. At least. Maybe Yuri would’ve even liked it.

This dance was about heights, the program notes supplied. The dancer leapt to be caught by another, continuing to lift, to reach. This was what Victor knew. It felt familiar, like a favorite practice room, like drawing yet another clef and the promise of empty staves.

Yuri probably practiced in the same studios he had before his “accident”, now that his leg was fully healed. He’d only ever seen the building from the outside, and it was a looming, ugly thing. So was Juilliard, so it made sense in context, but it wasn’t the kind of place Victor would choose to be. 

He wondered if it was more welcoming on the inside. For some reason, he could only imagine Yuri practicing fouettés by the windows in the afternoon, Victor holding Makka back and counting the revolutions with such silliness and exuberance that Yuri laughed, the sound whipping out of him as he spun. Victor could only imagine him doing stretches late into the night while listening to the 165th iteration of “okay, so let’s try it this way… what do you think?”, could only imagine him miming choreography in the park, waiting in line for too hot coffee, patiently allowing Victor to hum nonsense to match.

Must’ve been some patience, to last long enough to hurt like this. Everyone said “too much, too fast, too complicated”, so when Yuri said “more”---Victor had given up on having closeness with people outside his career years ago; deviating from that was a mistake.

The dancers twisted and twirled each other, pushing and pulling much like the way Yuri had found a way into his life and left something there, heavy and cold. 

It’s decided, no. more. love songs. It wasn’t worth this for a stupid commission. 

One more left before Yuri’s. 

Makka, he was sure, could feel it. He could tell the rumble that she kept inaudible, resting her head on his knee so she could communicate. So smart, his Makkachin. She’d put her faith in Yuri, too, which made him feel a little less stupid, but she’d kept it still, and it hurt to watch her head swivel to the door when there were footsteps down the hall. He couldn’t say his name aloud anymore; she’d howl. Yura, when he’d come for lessons, had noticed that he’d stopped using his name, and the strangest part was that he’d been kind about it. 

So far the music was… tolerable. Classics were classics, boring mostly from repetition and ubiquity. Some of the others were just plain bland, but then again, Victor had some pretty solid opinions on the pretensions inherent in contemporary minimalism, and it should probably be left at that. 

He hoped Yuri had better taste-- his playlists, even before Victor had shuffle-optimized them, were better than decent-- but, then again, how much did he really know? It wasn’t a thought he was used to having. Victor, the genius! Victor, the prodigy! Victor, the lonely, the desperate, the aching, pathetic mass of flesh, whose life could only be marked by other people’s thoughts and the blood that refused to stop pumping by sheer will. 

Makka nudged him again.

It had broadsided him when everything fell apart, and, for once, he didn’t like the surprise. 

“Victor,” he’d said. Victor, and not Vitya. Never Vitya. “I think we should end this.”

The phone had dropped from Victor’s hand, narrowly missing one of the glasses of water on the table. He wished it hadn’t, so the headline wouldn’t be able to mock him so readily from the still-lit screen. They stared down at it. ‘Is Victor Finally off the Market?: a compilation of Victuri sightings’. It was easier than looking at each other.

Victor searched for words. He wanted to tell him everything, now may be his only chance. But the voice says, he’s already saying no, Victor, and begging is pathetic. You weren’t raised to be pathetic like everyone else. “I don’t mind it, Yuri.”

“I don’t want them saying things like that. It’s not true.” His eyes, which had been focused on the phone on the table, lifted to meet Victor’s. “You’re crying.”

“Yes,” was the gruff reply. “It seems I remembered how.” Crying is pathetic, too, but the voice’s venom is drowned out by the thought that he’s awake, this is real, and no matter what he does, today he’s going to regret being alive. Today, at least.

“I had wondered if you could.” Yuri’s fingers reached for Victor’s hair, as if to further expose the pain of that moment, and they were quickly batted away. 

“I didn’t think Yuri Katsuki would be so selfish.”

“I guess I am.”

He couldn’t watch them! He couldn’t watch someone else fall in love onstage, even if his mind was stuck in a café 30 blocks away. Victor squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his face into Makka’s neck. He could be here for Yuri, see things through, leave as quietly as possible. Breathe, Victor. The fuzzy feeling isn’t real.

The clip Georgi had sent him when Yuri was interviewed, that was real. 

“‘On Love’. Now is this about someone in particular?” the host had asked. 

“Yes. I’m nervous, but excited, to share this with the world. I know what love is now, and I’m stronger for it.” That was real, too. 

Present tense. What could have been wasn’t, and it wouldn’t ever be. Victor didn’t talk for a week; he still couldn’t face Georgi. His old classmate was dramatic, and often lovelorn, and back then Victor had felt a sort of sick pride in it. I’m broken, he’d thought, I’m broken but it saves me from that. How foolish! How utterly naive. 

There was a moment of silence long enough that Victor knew the performance had ended, and he felt brave enough to lift his head again.

There were people, dimly lit, milling about the stage. They looked like they could be going somewhere, and some eventually did, even as ambient traffic noises pervaded the hall. As the tempo and the dynamic increased, so did the movements, until a low drum brought it all to a halt, the spotlight switching on----

It reminded Victor of when Yuri got homesick and consoled himself with katsudon and random clips of kabuki theater, only managing to laugh when Victor created an opera medley entirely out of sports videos. The drama, the power singing through every movement and every stillness, at the point of absurdity just before hilarity. Of course he was there, sitting on a park bench that someone must’ve deposited in the darkness, staring into the crowd like he expected someone to stare back.

Maybe he’s staring that them, he thought darkly. Maybe they’re staring back. 

There was a pause, and then a voice so shocking Victor couldn’t tell where it had come from, the speakers or the man. “Let’s start from the beginning. Tell me about love.”

Victor had been sprawled out on his living room floor, paper everywhere and nothing but garbage drafts among them. “I’m going to call Yakov, this isn’t working. Georgi can do it in his sleep. He loves writing this stuff--”

“Don’t you want to see this through, Victor? Don’t you want to push yourself?” He brought out the voice recorder app. “Let’s brainstorm. We’ll figure something out.”

And there it was… his piece, altered but still there. Yuri lifted himself up, stepping forward with no trace of the limp he’d had a year ago. And then his voice, HIS voice, so Victor had to press his hand against his lips to know they weren’t moving. “What do you want me to say? I could talk about it physically, chemically, biologically. I could tell you historically what it’s meant, what damage it’s caused--”

 

Yuri fell to floor, clutching at his chest and rolling in on himself, the pedestrians unseeing, uncaring. 

“And why not?”

“Will that ever prove anything other than it exists? No. It’s like walking on a beach to explore an ocean.”

“What do you want to tell people about love, then?” Yuri had asked.

“I want to believe in it,” said the Victor of then to the theater of now. 

“Love is--”

“--like coming in out of the cold.”

The backdrop glowed orange then yellow, and brighter, as the lights came up, and the audience could see the pedestrians and the park for what they were. It looked just like the park where they met, when they were both so sure their careers were over. 

He’d needed to come to an understanding of love in order to write about it. Because “Victor,” Yakov had told him, “everyone wants love songs. Not everyone wants the next great symphony. They want to fill the void left by their boring office, their bland life, their nonexistent hobbies. Write for them.”

Yakov might as well have asked Victor to look into a mirror and somehow scrounge enough human emotion together from that image to make something vaguely listenable. The early versions were absolute garbage-- cotton candy, whine-sap trash. They were maudlin and superficial and so obviously, painfully fake. 

“Let’s say you love someone? What would you tell them?”

“Him.”

“Okay, him-- this him in the future-- you tell him--?”

“That there isn’t a word big enough for this feeling. That love is overwhelmingly short in comparison. That four letters can’t encompass his place in my life. He’s like-- this is stupid, I don’t care-- he’s the third in a chord. He adds color to what was open and empty.”

He had been planning to tell them to find someone else. He’d write symphonies, war songs, movie scores… fucking jingles, if that’s what it took. The conversation was playing out in his head when he screwed up a throw and sent Makka tearing through the bushes. He’d followed close behind to see her comforting a man, who’d looked up at him, tearfully smiling.

And he’d thought, maybe, if I write this feeling, it will be enough. (It wasn’t, nor was the second, when Yuri found them at the park the next Saturday, nor the seventeenth, when Yuri graduated from his brace to physical therapy, nor the 94th, when he got a call on Christmas morning to be greeted with a clumsy, cheerful birthday song. But bits and pieces were, and in between those bits and pieces he wrote something stronger.)

“Love is--” came Yuri’s voice, less timid than before. 

“--calling into a canyon and not hearing your own voice.”

The music switched from the A theme to the B theme. Whoever had arranged this, whoever this PumaTigerScorpion was, at least they were clever about it. He’d like to meet them, to thank them for not doing a shit job. 

More than that, he wanted to run up and ask Yuri why. Why this? Why now? Who had he made this all for? And yet, he knew from his own experience how sacred the stage was in these moments. Tamed from listening for gods’ echo, they called into the peopled void for connection. They had made it a religion of their own, twisted into idols by the ones they had made divine. The sanctity of the space was constant, and he couldn’t desecrate it for his own selfish, selfish longing.

But the questions clawed from inside that cold and heavy thing inside him. He could hardly still them with the hand he placed against his chest, gaining more comfort from the knowledge that his hand fell against what was now a smooth plane than from the touch. 

Yuri, please, Victor thought. Tell me what I need to know.

Instead of the original recapitulation, the music changed again, speeding up, something much less Victor, but more like if Yuri’s workout playlists had gotten a hold of his manuscripts and tried them on like capes. 

“What about you, Yuri?”

“Me?”

“What is love to you?”

“Love is…”

The pedestrians that came across the stage wore masks now, coming towards Yuri from all sides. Some he dodged, some caught him in a spin before being pushed away. He should have been exhausted, with how he’d being throwing himself around the stage, but after the 5th had been cast aside, he launched into a beautiful series of spins. Fouettés.

The smile on his face was radiant. 

“Love is like spotting for a turn. No matter what happens, or for how long, there’s something to come back to, and it’s home. It’s safe.”

This was too close to what he wanted. Much too close. 

Yet Victor was mesmerized. How long would he spin? How long could he? How much was he willing to torment himself, and to prove what? 

“It feels like I could go on forever, and the infinite is a real, tangible thing.”

The cold and heavy thing reached out towards its name. Victor wanted to set it straight-- this is not a homecoming. It’s the part of the funeral right as the people begin to leave, and the hole in the earth is filled in again; it is the reiteration of permanence. 

Yuri was still spinning, and from sweat or something else, it was as if he had begun to glow. 

“Love is….”

The spinning stopped, and Yuri faced the audience at an angle, one hand over his heart, and the other pointing into the audience. Victor refused to think too much about the fact that the hand could be reaching for him. It was in his direction, but hope was a deadly, fruitless thing. 

“Love is you.”

Victor was the first one out of his seat, but he wasn’t the only one too shocked to clap. He could feel the eyes on him again, the weight of it and the last months too heavy. 

He was Victor Nikiforov. He was Victor Nikiforov. He strained to smile, bowed his head, and headed for the exit, even if Makka occasionally looked behind her to the stage. He could feel even more eyes on him. He didn’t look back. 

The usher didn’t dare block his way, so he took the cold metal handle in his grasp.

“Victor?”

If he stilled at all before crossing that threshold, he damn well wasn’t going to let anyone else notice. 

There was something comforting about the openness of the bits and pieces of performance halls that were empty. Victor may have preferred backstage in the hours before anyone else arrived for rehearsal or the whole place when the only other living souls were the cleaning and security staff, but empty lobbies were a close third. He’d take a moment to luxuriate in it before venturing out into the world again; it felt like he’d been the one on stage exerting himself. It was nice to be able to breathe. 

The quiet was disturbed by the crash of running feet and the access door bursting open. “You did come. It wasn’t my imagination.”

“I was given tickets.”

“I know.” Yuri was watching like he was afraid, and yet so sure, that Victor would disappear. His eyes flickered everywhere, never lingering, as if to drink it all in as quickly as possible, even if only a fleeting image could remain. Yuri licked his lips. “I didn’t want to tell the world and not you.”

“Are you going to tell me that you missed me? Is that what this is? Yuri, you know how many times-- I can’t, I can’t--”

“No, Victor. I mean yes, I missed you. Of course, I did. I didn’t explain before, and I was scared that you were going to end up hating me, so I just… made you hate me anyway.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“I would, if I were you.”

“No, you don’t. You love me, remember?”

“I seem to recall something along those lines.” He was so close. If Victor could only muster the bravery for it, he could reach out and touch him. “What about you?”

“Hmm?”

“I know they were mostly your words, but I mean them. Do you love me?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you liked the style... or found it difficult. If you'd like to scream at me further, you can find me on tumblr, where I may or may not be complaining about my project for nanowrimo..... 
> 
> which, hey! if you like this (read: if you enjoy crying and wondering why, if I'm so nihilistic, can I still feel at all), you may like my project: Last Words of the Soft-Spoken. Come bug me about it so I have reasons to actually put these stories on paper.


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